NVMe drives

What is an NVMe disk?

Like traditional SSDs, NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) disks are based on NAND Flash memory. By sitting directly on top of the PCI Express bus, previously used by other devices like graphics cards, NVMe disks are not affected by the bottlenecks of the SATA interface.

Capacity

Performance

Bandwidth

Whereas a SATA III connection offers a maximum speed of up to 750 MBps, a PCI Express lane delivers speeds of up to 985 MBps. NVMe disks use 8 PCI Express lanes for communication, or up to 2.8 GB/s read speed (for an Intel DC P3700 disk).

Latency

PCI Express delivers a significant improvement in read/write performance, thus increasing the number of read/write operations per second (IOPS). For example, an Intel DC P3700 disk offers up to 460,000 read IOPS. Latency is around 20 us, compared to 5 ms for a traditional SSD disk.

Applications

Website

The improvement in read/write speed reduces the page loading time for websites that need a lot of disk access.

Database

Implementing a cache system on an NVMe that hosts an important database can greatly optimize access.

Testimonial

Intel/OVH NVMe whitepaper

Go further and dive right into the heart of fast storage technology. From Flash storage cells to access protocols, this whitepaper details the principles, characteristics and applications of SSD and NVMe disks.